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Biomedical subjects

P R Hoffman

Publications and source records attributed to P R Hoffman.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1989

On the nature of phonological development: evidence from normal children's spelling errors.

Spelling errors of 45 elementary school children were analyzed for phonological process patterns. A considerable proportion of errors involved both syllabic reduction and feature changes similar to those seen in normal speech development. Results are discussed with respect to application of phonological constructs to the study of development of speech production. An alternative psychological model of development is proposed in outline.

Child↗
PubMed1986

Amer-Ind versus ASL: recognition and imitation in aphasic subjects.

The imitation and recognition ability of brain-damaged and normal subjects was tested for 30 pairs of semantically matched ASL signs and corresponding Amer-Ind gestures. Subjects were rated according to severity and site of lesion. They were 6 nonaphasic, right-hemisphere brain-damaged subjects, 12 aphasic subjects, and 12 non-brain-damaged geriatric subjects. Results indicated that the Amer-Ind gestures were significantly easier to imitate and to recognize than the matched ALS signs. The relationships between these gestural abilities and severity of aphasia, site of lesion, Amer-Ind transparency ratings, and subjects' performance on a standardized aphasia test are outlined. The theoretical implications that concern the neural systems which mediate spoken and limb gestures are discussed.

Aged↗
PubMed1985

Reliability of verbal-manual interference.

Considerable recent research has used unimanual finger tapping with concurrent vocalization to assess hemispheric lateralization for language. This study examined whether an index finger tapping task is a reliable measure in adults and whether the task demonstrates sex differences in hemispheric specialization for language. Thirty right-handed subjects, fifteen male and fifteen female, between the ages of 18 and 25 were tested. The task measured the differences in tapping rate for each hand between tapping with and without a concurrent verbal task. The task was completed once each day for 3 consecutive days to determine reliability. The tapping task was found to be a reliable measure. No significant differences were found between tapping scores of males and females.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Misarticulating and normally articulating children's identification and discrimination of synthetic [r] and [w].

In this study, 22 children, ages 6:0 to 6:11, who misarticulated word-initial [r] as [w], were compared to 13, age-matched normally articulating children for their ability to identify and discriminate seven synthetic stimuli representing an acoustic continuum between [we] and [re]. Discrimination was tested among 3-step continuum stimulus pairs using the 4IAX paradigm. All of the control children demonstrated a single, sharp phonemic boundary during identification and higher between-phoneme than within-phoneme discrimination ability. Most of the misarticulating children demonstrated abnormal identification functions, with many showing only chance-level responses. Discrimination ability of the misarticulating children was generally poorer than that of the normally articulating children. Furthermore, discrimination ability of children in both groups was largely predictable from their identification performance, assuming categorical perception of these stimuli. Results indicate that a majority of the 6-year-old [r]-misarticulating children have failed to phonemically distinguish /r/ from /w/. These results call into question the use of the liquid gliding process as a psychological processing description of the misarticulation of these children.

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMed1984

Multiple-phoneme-misarticulating children's perception and production of voice onset time.

6 language-impaired misarticulating and 6 normal kindergarten children produced and perceived differences in word-initial stop consonant voicing. Individuals' productive and perceptual phonemic boundaries were similar. No statistically reliable differences were noted between the groups' mean productive or perceptual boundaries. Individual exceptions suggest that some misarticulating , language-impaired children may be inordinately challenged by synthetic speech stimuli or may pass through a developmental stage in which perceptual ability outstrips productive ability.

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMed1983

Perception and production of misarticulated (r).

Twelve children who consistently misarticulated consonant [r] and five children who correctly articulated [r] were recorded while repeating sentences which differed only in a single (r)-(w) contrast. All (r) and (w) productions were spectrographically analyzed. Error productions were judged for their similarity to [w]. Each child identified all of the recorded sentences via a picture-pointing task. Misarticulated [r] was identified as (w) at above chance levels only by the children who did not misarticulate [r]. The subject groups did not differ in their perception of correctly articulated (r) and (w) phones. Children whose misarticulated [r] phones were judged to be (w)-like were most likely to misperceive their own productions of (r). Children whose misarticulated [r] productions were characterized by higher second formant frequencies were better able to identify their productions of (r). Results suggest that a subpopulation of children who misarticulate [r] may mark it acoustically in a nonstandard manner.

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMed1983

Interallophonic generalization of (r) training.

Twelve children (ages 5:6 to 7:10) who inconsistently misarticulated (r), participated in training programs for specific allophones of (r). Training steps included production of syllables, nouns, noun phases, and simple sentences. Generalization to untrained allophones occurred for all children. However, transfer of training was less likely to occur from training of [epsilon] to clustered [Cr] and [delta] phones. Results suggest that (r) training programs need to include production practice for the shorter, less stressed allophones as well as the more stable [epsilon].

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMed1983

Aerodynamic measures of coarticulation in /VNC/ sound sequences.

Simultaneous measurements were made of voice, oral air flow, and nasal air flow for two speakers producing seven repetitions of 12 differing contexts containing Vowel + Nasal + Oral Consonant sequences in a search for the temporal pattern of nasal coarticulation. Analysis indicated a rather stereotyped degree of overlap of nasal air flow during the oral consonant, about 36% of the duration of the oral consonant. Carryover of nasal air flow into the oral consonant appears to reflect mechano-inertial limitations of a sluggish velum.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Effects of lingual anesthetization upon lingualabial coarticulation.

(Right to Left) and (Left to Right) coarticulation of vowels with stop consonants in VCV logotemes was studied before and during oral anesthetization. Correlational analysis revealed that neither LR nor RL coarticulation was markedly reduced in extent, suggesting that orosensory feedback was not crucial to control of coarticulation. This lends support to the notion of central control of coarticulation.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Speech clinicians' attribution of personality traits as a function of stuttering severity.

Thirty-six speech-language pathologists participated in a study to evaluate clinicians' preconceptions of persons who stutter. Each rated a designated construct (the normally fluent individual, the mild stutterer, the moderate stutterer, the severe stutterer) using a personality trait scale. Results indicated that clinicians stereotypically assign negative personality traits to all levels of stuttering severity relative to normal. Their ratings further demonstrated that stutterers are generally considered to be a homogenous group. Differentiation amongst stutterers was made only between the polar ends of the stuttering severity continuum (that is, mild vs. severe). Clinicians' sterotypical trait assignment was not related to their professional experience. Results are discussed with reference to their clinical implications.

Humans↗
PubMed1977

Contextual-coarticulatory inconsistency of /r/ misarticulation.

Ten children who misarticulated /r/ participated in a task designed to survey inconsistent misarticulatory behavior. Children repeated 51 sentences during each of three trials. All sentences contained a single occurrence of an allophone of /r/ in systematically permuted, lexically constrained (LC) or nonlexically constrained (NLC) CrV contexts or nonlexically constrained (NLC) contexts. Results suggested that reliable judgment procedures were employed and that a high degree of internal consistency was present for the sentence repetition task. All children demonstrated inconsistent misarticulation of the target phonemes. Target allophones, in order of least to more often correctly produced, were (NCL) [r], (LC) [r], and (NLC). Correct production of [r] within NLC contexts occurred more frequently when preceded by /k/ and when followed by the vowels /i/, /ae/, and /u/. The target allophone [r] in LC clusters was produced correctly more often within /k/ and /t/ contexts than in /p/ contexts. Vocalic was produced correctly more often within and contexts than when in others in which /k/, /n/, /t/, and /p/ were permuted. Data suggest that certain anticipatory and carry-over coarticulatory variables result in positive influences during inconsistent misarticulatory behavior.

Child↗